And consequently, as time wore on, severer measures were considered necessary.

Some boroughs were deprived of the right of election altogether; in others, whose population or constituency was too numerous to make their permanent disfranchisement advisable, the writ was suspended for a time, that its suspension might serve both as a punishment and as a warning, a practice which is still not unfrequently adopted.

But no plan could be devised for dealing with the evil in counties, till what seemed hopeless to achieve by direct legislation was, in a great degree, effected by the indirect operation of the Reform Bill of 1832.

The shortening of the duration of an election, which was henceforth concluded in a single day, and the multiplication of polling places, which rendered it impossible to ascertain the progress of the different candidates till the close of the poll, were provisions having an inevitable and most salutary effect in diminishing alike the temptation to bribe on the part of the candidate, and the opportunity of enhancing the value of his vote by the elector.

The vast increase of newspapers, by diffusing political education and stimulating political discussion, has had, perhaps, a still greater influence in the same direction.